Engineers to host Dartmouth in ECAC playoffs

TROY >> Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute split its two weekend games and since all the Engineers needed to secure home-ice for the first round of the ECAC Hockey playoffs was one victory, a 1-1-0 weekend was OK, right?

Ah, not really; not with the way the Engineers played during the 5-0 drubbing they incurred at Yale on Saturday night.

After a good start for most of the first period, the Engineers simply were awful.

They stopped hitting, turned the puck over repeatedly, and often, didn’t get back on defense.

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Turnovers preceded three of Yale’s five goals and the Engineers had a decent chance to clear the puck on another.

The were outshot 41-18.

It was far cry from their 3-0 victory at Brown on Friday night.

Head coach Seth Appert again said Sunday he wasn’t displeased with the Engineers’ play and thought they were quite good in the “first 25-27 minutes of the game,” except for the fact that they did not score.

“We just turned the puck over too much,” he added.

Yale, the defending national champion, had been beaten by Union on Friday night despite putting 49 shots on the Dutchmen’s net. The Bulldogs figured to need a victory Saturday to help their chances for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament bid if they don’t win the ECAC’s automatic bid as the league’s playoff championship. They didn’t win it last season but won the national title with an at-large berth.

“I thought Yale was great,” Appert said. “They lost Friday night and with all they were playing for, we expected that we were going to see a desperate team and we had to match that. I thought we did for 20-25 minutes, then they wore us down with their speed and their puck movement and we didn’t handle it well and they forced into a lot of turnovers.”

So, the Engineers will face Dartmouth in a best-of-three series Friday-Sunday at Houston Field House in the ECACH’s playoffs preliminary round. The Engineers beat the 10th-place Big Green (7-13-2, 8-17-4) in both meetings this season -- 7-1 and 4-2.

Is this the year?: Any Rensselaer fan can tell you that the Engineers haven’t won a postseason series at home since 2004, losing to lower seeded teams in 2006, 2010, 2011 and last year.

While most, perhaps all of the RPI players are unaware of the severity of that losing streak but Rensselaer backers certainly are quite aware.

“Do you think we’ll win a series at home this year,” two fans asked this reporter Saturday night -- one before the game, one after.

Obviously, the Engineers have a chance to do so -- but their execution and consistency must improve.

Will the offense come around?: Rensselaer has been beset with numerous extended scoring slumps in each of the past four seasons. The Engineers are mired in one now.

Discounting the empty-net goals scored by Mike Zalewski and Schroeder, RPI has totaled only 19 goals in 11 games, 32 goals in 18 games. Well under two goals per game and even in a defense-oriented league such as ECACH, those numbers will lose you games -- eventually. The Engineers are 6-9-3 in those 18 games and that record could be worse. It could also be better -- with just a goal here and there -- 9-6-3 or 10-6-2.

Not only that, but if the Engineers had won two of three 3-3 ties they had at home -- the blew two-goal leads against both Harvard and Cornell -- and won the game they lost 2-1 at Princeton -- the Tigers won only one other game among their 17 -- with just those three little “ifs” -- a goal here and there, RPI would have finished fourth.

Appert is one categorically doesn’t even refer to such ‘what-ifs’ and he translates that to his players.

“We think in the now and what’s immediately ahead,” Higgs said.

Back to the offense. The Engineers have scored two or fewer goals 13 times in their past 18 games. Fourth-leading scorer Matt Neal (10-goals-12 goals-22 points) has not registered a point in 11 games.

Leading scorer Ryan Haggerty (24-14-38) has just five goals over the past 17 games after netting 18 in his first 15 games.

Brock Higgs had 11 goals in the first 16 games and has just three in the past 18. Now much of the decline with all of their decline is the fact that virtually all of the second half of the season is league play and, again, the ECACH is a defense-first conference.

Still, the Engineers have to get the offense going -- or the playoffs will be a short affair for them again.

Utter dominance: There was a slight chance on Saturday night that the Brown Bears could fall to10th place and thus, come to Houston Field House this coming weekend, hoping to bump off the higher-seeded Engineers for the third time in five seasons. That didn’t happen, though, and the 9th-seeded Bears will travel to meet 8th-seeded St. Lawrence.

Over the past 21 games dating back 11 seasons, Brown has won only one game (1-17-3).

In the past seven meetings of the teams -- regular season -- the Bears have totaled just four goals. In the 2010 and 2013 playoffs, however, the Bears, seeded 11th in 2010 and seventh last year, won four of six playoffs games against RPI (seeded sixth and second) at Houston Field House, totaling 15 goals.

A head-scratcher, indeed.

Inconsistent: The Engineers come into the playoffs having not won consecutive games in six weeks, when the beat Dartmouth and Union. Prior to that the only times they won consecutive was back in October, when a 7-1 rout of Sacred Heart was sandwiched between victories over perennial Hockey East powers Boston University (3-1) and New Hampshire (4-2).

The Dartmouth-Union weekend ignited a 5-2-1 stretch for the Engineers but they’ve won just once in four games (1-2-1) since.

“We’ll get ready (for Dartmouth) tomorrow (Sunday),” Appert said Saturday night. “We played good (Friday) night, we earned a win on the road against a really good Brown team and that got us home ice. What’s done is done. Now we have to ready ourselves this week, which means good practices, and also good measured rests to make sure we have the mental and physical energy necessary to win a playoff series. It’s going tough ... every series in our league always is.”